AK 239: The Enemy Is Already Here

TK-20

Captain Vasili’s Diary

“You mean the guy who already died a thousand years ago?” I hear over TK-20’s speaker system.

I’m in the control room of TK-20 watching the two fishing trawlers and the Iranian sub from my periscope, just under the water’s surface.

“Do we have a solution?”

Aye, captain,” says Nikolai, my over eager 2nd in command.

TK-20 has been retrofitted to fire only four torpedoes, two of which are 650mm tubes while the other two are 533mm tubes. One ‘53’ or ‘65’ torpedo could easily sink one or more of these ships.

“You slimly, little Iranian bastards are going to get a taste of Russia,” I said.

Anything trying to escape my sub would be hit with a torpedo designed to follow a propeller in the water and explode on impact.

None of them would stand a chance.

“Four fish in their chambers locked and loaded, sir!” an enthusiastic Nikolai reports to me.

I shout, “Range to targets?”

“950 yards!” calls out the senior michman (warrant officer).

Vasili then barks, “Flood torpedo tubes one and two.”

“Aye, flooding tubes one and two, sir.”

Over the speaker system, “Conn, radio room, incoming from Moscow.”

I yell back as I keep one eye buried in my periscope,

“Radio room, conn, put Moscow on the speaker.”

“Captain Vasili, this is Admiral Perchinkov, you are to stand down. I repeat, stand down.”

I immediately answer, “Aye, stand down. We are standing down, sir.”

In the “old days” a good sonar officer aboard the Iranian sub would be listening and could likely have heard word for word what was just said over TK-20’s speaker system.

However, with our new top-secret skin developed by “friends” in St. Petersburg at Roselectronics they won’t hear a word. The acoustic absorbing and reflective coatings makes us almost invisible to radar and sonar.

These Top Secret materials are so secret I don’t even know its name. All I knew is that it had been applied to my entire hull. I was told, after testing, that sonar technicians sitting next to my boat wouldn’t be able to hear a gunshot inside the boat!

“Follow and observe only. Await further orders.”

Without hesitating I said,

“Yes, sir. Follow and observe only.”

Then I thought to myself,

“I don’t care how silent we are, the Americans will find us sooner or later, see us as a threat and kill all my men!

That is, unless I can show them otherwise.”

This got me thinking, as I kept staring into my periscope.

Nikolai, standing nearby, seems upset that he won’t get to see and hear some actual combat.

These foolish kids have no idea of what it’s like to see and hear men trapped and dying inside a sinking ship.

I have to get off this thing, get back to my wife and retire. I really liked those pictures of Nebraska. I wonder what people there are doing today?

I see the Iranians load several “suitcases” (I had no idea what they were at this point) onto the second much smaller fishing boat. This boat has several tiny rubber rafts on it.

The second boat then speeds away from King of the Crabs and the Iranian sub.

Meanwhile Bahadur looks to still have his weapon trained on Orlav.

King of the Crabs then pulls away from the Iranian sub heading toward Bokan Mountain.

I yell, “Radio room, conn, tell Moscow we now have three possible hostile fish: Two big fish and a little fish. Multiple packages offloaded. Little fish is heading away. Advise. End of Message.”

After a pause, the radio room answers over the ship’s speaker system, “Radio room, conn, Moscow says stay with the two big fish. Let the little fish go.”

“Conn, radio room, confirm with Moscow, we are tracking the two big fish,” I say.

Soon the michman in the radio room confirms,

“Radio room, conn, I have told Moscow: We’re tracking the two big fish!”